


Commanded

by shopfront



Category: Legend of the Seeker (TV), Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Divided Loyalties, F/F, First Meetings, Warlord Xena
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-20 14:56:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17624528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/pseuds/shopfront
Summary: When Lord Rahl sends his favourite Mord'Sith to pay a visit to a neighbouring Warlord, he doesn't expect her to be gone so long - and she doesn't expect to find the Warlord so intriguing.





	Commanded

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittleRaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/gifts).



_‘I could raise an army and once again force him to let us travel through his lands, but at great cost. I have faith in you to fix this for me, Cara. So go. Make friends with the petty little Warlord. Convince him to let you test the Boundary for weaknesses where it meets his borders, and then return to me quickly.’_

Rahl’s gaze still burned into hers in her mind’s eye, but Cara did not flinch from the memory of it. He had commanded her to go, and so she had taken a horse and made the journey. She had gone past the edges of lands known to her and into enemy territory. There on the border she had found some resistance, but they hadn’t expected to encounter a Mord'Sith and so it had been easily quelled.

Now she stood victorious in the Warlord’s tent, waiting for his entrance so she could entreat him for an alliance.

She shifted in her leathers, as if uneasy in her waiting. Then she watched with a smirk as a ripple of admiration spread through the Warlord’s men. Before she could catch any one specific person's eye, however, the sound of clapping broke through their murmuring. It marked the slow and steady beat of somebody else’s amusement, and Cara narrowed her eyes as she watched them jerk to attention one by one as the clapping neared her, their eyes fixed on something - or someone - behind her.

“Well, well, well,” a female voice purred in Cara’s ear. Almost close enough to startle, but Cara refused to show unintended weakness.

She felt the heat of the other woman’s body against her back for the briefest of moments before the woman moved swiftly past her and threw herself carelessly down into the Warlord’s wooden throne. Cara watched as she hooked one knee over the armrest, and slouched there grinning and twirling a long dark lock of her hair around a finger until Cara quirked an eyebrow in enquiry. Then the woman gestured sharply without saying a word, and a servant brought over a bowl of grapes and a flagon of what smelled to Cara like a sweet sort of ale.

“What do we have here?” the woman finally asked, before biting clean through a grape with obvious relish.

“An envoy sent from the Midlands,” a man offered from the watching crowd. He'd been one of those to watch Cara closely and he leered as he spoke, but still ducked his head respectfully when the woman's glance danced away from Cara and toward him.

Cara watched the exchange carefully and raised her chin. Her play-acted unease was dropping away only to be replaced with a more genuine wariness.

This was not the Warlord she had been sent to ally with. Nor did the scene unfolding around her resemble anything she'd expected from the tales told by the last Mord'Sith to visit these lands. And though Cara was more than willing to practise her charms on a new leader, a woman might prove more… troublesome to control than she'd planned.

But the woman in question only continued to sip her ale and eat her grapes as her eyes wandered curiously up and down Cara's body.

“You can call me Xena,” she offered after she'd popped the last grape in her mouth and risen to her feet again. Cara let a sly smile reach her lips, and opened her mouth to speak - but Xena waved a disinterested hand. “Take her away for now,” she said, already turning towards a table in the corner of the tent that was covered in maps.

Hands appeared at Cara’s elbows to tug her out of the tent before she could protest, not that her protests were heeded once she began to make them. The temptation to slam feet and elbows into sensitive places and reach for her agiels rose quickly in her.

But caution tempered her anger.She needed to learn more about this Xena before she made her move.

* 

When Cara stepped out of her tent into the morning air many weeks later, she noted the chill with some surprise. Time seemed to be slipping away through her fingers. But though it may have taken a full turning of the season, her wait had been fruitful. There were no longer guards waiting for her to emerge for the day and escort her to and fro, and she could finally move freely through the camp without wary swords being drawn or speculative glances.

Some days she found herself missing it. That first uneasy dance of seduction and diplomacy which they had both enjoyed. The expectation, now long lost, that she might still return quickly to the Midlands as her Lord had bid her to do. Occasionally she had bloodied her hands over some disagreement with Xena’s men, and been rewarded by amusement in Xena’s eyes.

In return for being entertaining, she now had a far greater understanding of Xena’s ways. A knowledge of the breadth of her forces and a certainty that Cara would never have completed a full assessment of the Boundary without permission before Xena herself had tracked her down to make her pay for the trespass.

Cara had heard many times now the full tale of the last Warlord in these parts; the same one who had held Lord Rahl’s forces at bay for many weeks. Long enough to prove something of a nuisance to the Midlands, yet he had fallen to Xena’s sword in a matter of hours. 

As she nodded to the men guarding Xena’s own bed-tent and ducked through the open flap, she wondered whether she could truly regret that happenstance. Even if had derailed her own plans entirely.

“You’re late,” came the usual post-travel admonishment from deeper inside the tent. Cara waited by the entrance a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light inside before tying the flap closed behind her.

“I am always early,” she replied archly as she stepped easily around the coals smouldering in their brazier and began to peel back the pile of familiar furs. "And you said not to expect you back until tomorrow."

Xena stretched beneath her gaze, looking up at her sleepily. The long, naked lines of her body slowly revealed beneath the covers drew Cara’s eyes down. Cara thoughtfully considered bruises likely garnered in numerous border skirmishes, licking her lower lip pointedly until Xena chuckled

“You should have taken me with you,” Cara said as she slipped beneath the covers to join her.

“The rivers are still swollen. We were forced to stray closer to the Midlands than we wanted,” Xena murmured into the skin of Cara’s neck as she rolled over, entwining their limbs together. Her breath ghosted across Cara’s jaw and Cara fought back the urge to shudder beneath it. “You might have met your sisters in battle.”

“All the more reason to take me with you,” Cara said sharply.

Xena went still against her and pulled back. Her expression had hardened, her eyes shuttered, but she didn’t reply immediately. Instead she slid her hands slowly along Cara’s arms, caressing the curves of her muscles and the shape her wrists before tightening her grip around Cara's fingers and pinning her to the bed.

“Unlike your precious Rahl, I have no desire to force a test of your loyalty,” she said, and the steel in her voice encouraged Cara to part her lips - and her legs. Xena’s eyes softened again as they shifted together, even as she pressed Cara’s hands hard into the mattress once more before releasing her. “The Mord'Sith remain unharmed by my hands,” she continued as she dipped her head to press a kiss against the leather covering the dip of Cara’s collarbone. “We didn’t even encounter a patrol. Not of Midlanders, at least.”

Cara breathed out a sigh that felt something like relief, then brought her hands up to sink into Xena’s hair as Xena began to unbuckle her leathers and continued to kiss her way down Cara’s belly. The sounds of the camp filtered through the tent more quietly than usual, dimmed by exhaustion and Xena's returned men sleeping late. Cara dismissed noises as easily as she registered them, instead favouring the dying crackling of the fire that warmed the tent and the pleased hum of Xena’s voice as she revealed Cara’s skin piece by piece.

The test Xena did not want would arrive sooner or later. Darken Rahl could be a patient man when he wished to be, but even he had his limits. 

But for once Cara was happy to wait and let what might come, come when it would. 


End file.
